Compacting, credit cutting, and random thoughts

Friday, December 14, 2007

So I am ready. Ready to completely cut out credit from our consumer diet. It will mean that for a while I will be completely anal. And that is sort of ok with me. We have a lot of consumer debt that we accrued since Don went into college in 2002, and sometimes it is hard to see it all. But we are coming to a place where we have a lot of what we need, we have enough money each month to put a little back now.... by my standards, I mean.

I was thinking of doing "Not Buying It" for a while... but that won't work. I will be getting things for the kids rooms to organize their spaces. I will be getting things to stream line the things that I am doing in the house, and I will be getting things for the garden come February next year. So Compacting it is.

I am less than half way through Omnivore's Dilemma and I am ready to buy local beef. Chicken is harder... they cost more to produce. I know. I have 6 laying hens out there, that are only double the age for first culling and that means that since last February we would have only had 12 birds for the food and space and time it has taken to raise these chicks. That would be spendy if I was to sell that. But beef and pork, I can do local. I also want to get a whole share of the CSA farm this year. If they recover from the flood that is, which I have every hope that they will. They have a drop off point right next to the Library so I can even make it a double trip each week next spring. That will work out nicely. I am already itching to garden... December through Feb is hard for me... maybe time to build some cold frames?

I may give the farm my chickens. They lost their 4 hens and rooster during the flood. Another friend is giving them a rooster from their same stock... I would like to give them the laying hens. We don't have the room or the time for them right now. I keep feeling like I am neglecting them. And the money. Yikes... the tarp I bought for the coop is already breaking, meaning I have cold wet birds quite often this time of year. I put our old shower curtain over it... but if you are going to have chickens in the city, you really need to put some money behind it and build a nice coop. No one wants to see an old dog kennel converted into a innercity chicken coop... plus, I can't keep it from not smelling. But I love those birds, and the eggs they give us from their healthy outdoor lives, and lovely kitchen scrap diets... so I don't know what to do. Maybe one months worth of debt paying can go to building a new coop. I just don't know. Maybe I will just give them two or something.

4 comments

It's an amazing place to be. I will never do credit, I'm happy to be here. It's not always easy, but way more mindful.

I've yet to read that book, it's one I will at some point.

Our chickens are snug in their coop. We have room for more. In the winter we board up the windows to keep drafts out and when it is at freezing or below I turn on their heat lamps. We make a special effort to keep the nest boxes clean and dry and the water unfrozen. They roam the place all day. We are getting an egg a day. When I had the Mediterranean hens they would stop laying in the winter.

Val, I just stumbled upon your blog and from what I've seen so far we are of one mind! I'd like to add that pledge to read the written word to my blog. Can you tell me how? thanks a million! I'm a new follower!